Alassane Ouattara

A few days ago, Al Jazeera English channel screened (and then put online) a 30 minute documentary, “The Power of Song,” on the Ivorian reggae star Tiken Jah Fakoly. Made by a Canadian production company, the film was billed by Al Jazeera as following Fakoly on a visit to two village schools in Côte d’Ivoire that he funds (51% of Ivorians are illiterate). The publicity also emphasized generalities. Tiken Jah “fights for Africa’s poor and marginalized.”

It’s clear that truth and reconciliation commissions are half-successful attempts at inventing half-baked feelings of national identities (turning a blind eye to economic restoration in South Africa; with some self-interested…..

James North: Orientalism takes a different form in sub-Saharan Africa. There, Orientalists do not emphasize the “Islamic” angle quite as much, although they do sometimes suggest that a “fault line” running…..